Guest gave us a fake SSN for a long stay background check

[Don-And-Emily0]

Hi lovely hosts,

Hope this finds you all well. What an adventure hosting on airbnb has become these days… 

We don’t usually host long term stays but accepted a reservation from a traveling couple for a 4 month stay.  

Our house is located in NY where (like CA and IL) squatter laws apply. This means that if a guest is in your home for 30 days, they have full “resident” rights and you can not get them out even if they stop paying rent… The only way to evict them is to hire an attorney to start the eviction process and it can take 6 months to 2 years to get them out, during which time you are not allowed to use your home, change the locks or turn off the utilities.

The gf agreed to a lease and when the time came to vet them, she resisted and delayed giving us the necessary information culminating with her giving us a fake SSN for her boyfriend. Also his name on airbnb acct was not the full name on his DL. She also refused to purchase renters insurance which is not that expensive. 

Not sure what she thought she would accomplish with a fake ssn but at this point, we no longer felt comfortable hosting them and contacted airbnb. 

To their credit, airbnb cancelled their reservation without penalty to us, but the couple became enraged and started booking the entire 4 month period in 29 day increments… basically demanding access to our home. There are hundreds of airbnb homes in our area, but they seem fixated on ours for some reason. 

Moral of the story is: if you live in NY, CA or IL, exercise caution with long term rentals. Now that the Covid Eviction moratorium has ended, it seems conmen and women are on the move to airbnb.

[Hal3292]

@Kelly149 When someone "requests," does this show up as just a message for the host to reply to, or do you have to make the choice to Approve or Decline? And if it's the latter, are you then penalized if you hit Decline?

[Kelly149]

@Hal3292 two avenues for this:

Inquiry - this is a question that you must respond to (response rate) AND abb will tell you that you should pre-approve BUT in truth you don't have to do anything other than answer

Request - you must respond (response rate) AND you also must do one of three things. 1) get the guest to rescind their request 2) approve them to stay 3) decline (this does ding your acceptance rate, which may or may not matter, no one really knows)

[Hal3292]

@Kelly149Thanks! That's super-helpful

[Huma0]

@Don-And-Emily0 

I host long term guests but I am protected by the law here in the UK because I host rooms in my own primary residence, so different laws apply to renting out an entire unit and the guests therefore have no tenants' rights in my home. At most, they would be considered lodgers/licensees and I would only be required to give them reasonable notice if I wanted them to leave. Of course, this might not be the case in other countries.

I do not allow my guests to receive mail as I do not want them to be registering bank accounts, credit cards, social security etc. here (nor do I want to be receiving demands for unpaid debts at my address). However, some guests have still gone ahead and done this, in which case will HOUND them until they have my address removed. 

I don't use IB anymore but, in your case, I would have blocked those guests to prevent them booking again. A few years ago, one couple used up all my penalty free cancellations for one booking because they would not take no for an answer. I wish I had known back then that I could have blocked them.

I have no hesitation now in blocking guests I do not want or guests that I do not want to return. It doesn't stop them booking elsewhere, but at least I am rid of them!

[Don-And-Emily0]

Hi @Huma0 - we had to block them at the suggestion of the airbnb csr. They became aggressive and rebooked our property even after they were told we could not host them. We reported them for harassment and airbnb took care of it. For all I know they might have lost their accounts for what they did. 

The expectations are off the charts with young ppl these days. To think that you can just present somebody else’s SS number to a host, get caught and expect to continue with the booking is the height of entitlement.

[Huma0]

@Don-And-Emily0 

Yes, I agree with you. I've never understood why anyone would want to stay somewhere where they are not welcome, but I've also had guests become really pushy, and once quite insulting, when I've turned them away (not just the couple I mentioned above). To be caught doing something that dodgy and still expect to book? Sounds like you really dodged a bullet in this case.

Even if you have blocked the guest and they cannot contact you/book with you, you can check their profile to see if they have been delisted or not. I hope they have. However, I reported and blocked a guest on the advice of Airbnb because she tried again to book with me using a second profile and trying to pretend (not very well) that it was a different person. Airbnb did not remove either profile and the guest was able to continue to book other listings.

[Sammy-L-0]

Report them to ABnB, and if the harassment continues, report them to the police.

[Don-And-Emily0]

Hi @Sammy-L-0 - We did report them and airbnb helped us block them.

We just hope they don’t show up at the house and cause some damage. Luckily we have 3 security cameras on the property.